Friday, November 16, 2012

Let them Eat Cake!

When I was 19 and found out that I was pregnant, I knew that I would be
criticized as a young Mom. I decided before my son was born that I
would be the best Mom I could be and that I would start many traditions
that I could keep with him and my future children.

The one thing I
was adamant about , was birthdays. I wanted to make sure that my
children’s birthdays were going to be remembered. Naturally, I decided I
would accomplish that by baking them birthday cakes, from scratch,
every year. So far, I must say it has been a success. I am by no means
Martha Stewart, but I pride myself in being able to get creative and do
something fun.

For his first birthday I did the Little
Einstein’s caterpillar cake. Everything was homemade, the cake batter
and the icing. It took me a total of 12 hours to complete (it was my
first try). And I gave my son his own personal circle from the
caterpillar. He might not remember this one, but my family will and he
recognizes the pictures as being his first cake, so I consider it a
success.

His second birthday was the year the Cars movie came
out, and even though he was just a toddler, he loved it, so went with
it. I cheated a little on this one and used a cake pan instead of
trying to bake a regular cake and form it, but the batter and icing are
again, homemade, and of course, iced by hand. (that takes a lot of
patience and time and is a total pain, but completely worth it!) This
one only took me 6 hours!

His third birthday is by far, one of
my favorite creations. I made this cake to imitate the Little
Einstein’s Rocket, I used a Wilton Egg cake pan and Twinkies and graham
crackers for the rockets. Again, the batter is homemade as is the icing
and I did all the piping by hand. This one took me three days, a total
of probably 15 hours, but I have to say, I was so proud of it, that all
the time I spent was totally worth it.

Birthday number four
was not as successful as I had hoped, but that year I was working two
jobs and was hard pressed to find the time to make it. It is supposed
to Wubzy from the toddler show Wow Wow Wubzy. Apparently I forgot legs,
but it is a pretty strong likeness to have completed in just 6 hours.
By this year, I had gotten into the routine of making the batter and
icing from scratch and it was probably the best tasting cake yet.

Birthday
5 does not have a photo…not sure why…Mommy brain, I guess. But it was a
Buzz Lightyear theme. I started asking my son what he wanted for
birthday number 4 and he really enjoys being able to pick the kind of
cake. It gets him very excited. Cake number 5 was a simple round cake,
as I (again) ran out of time to do anything more complicated and I did
not want to spend the money on a buzz cake pan. We ended up using cake
toppers and it was by far the most basic cake. I was very disappointed.

So, I made up for it with cake number 6. My son could not decide on a theme, he told me to surprise him. So I did. With this:

It
looks like your run of the mill cake, plain white icing just garnished
with gumballs, but it’s still pretty cute. Beside, it wasn’t what was
on the outside that counted. It was what I put INSIDE. Check it out!

This
is a bonafide rainbow cake. I found the recipe on Pintrest, but I
modified it a little because I couldn’t find it when I was baking. It
was seriously, so much easier than it looks and it was such a hit with
EVERYONE.

I used a basic WHITE cake recipe, you use egg whites
instead of the whole egg. All you have to do is separate the batter
into different bowls and then dye the batter in each bowl to match the
rainbow…or any other color theme, I considered using all different
shades of red, my son’s favorite color, but I wanted to try the rainbow.
The key is to use gel food coloring because it doesn’t alter the
consistency of the batter and results in a darker color. If you try
baking this, remember that the colors darken when you bake them, so if
your red doesn’t look as dark as you want, it will get darker.

I am
pregnant with a girl right now and I am so excited for all the cake
ideas that I will be able to do with her too, to keep the tradition. My
son is not a huge fan of cake, but every year he gets more and more
excited for his birthday and his special cake. It is a simple
tradition, and in the early years they might not appreciate it, but
later in life, when my kids are grown and learn how to bake, they will
realize the time and dedication that I spent making their birthday’s
special and it will be one more reminder to them how much I love them.

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Hi, we are the Stepford Sisters! There's three of us, Jairica, Stephanie, and Sara Stepford and yes, last names have been changed to protect the innocent. We chose Stepford because we are all family oriented, capable, wives with children. Each of us strive to make our homes into the perfect ideal family unit, so we thought blogging about our failures might brighten your day!

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